


say you'll see me again (even if it's just in your wildest dreams)

by HogwartsDwarfKat



Series: Obikin Week 2k18 [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Day Five: Masquerade (meeting under masks), Emotions, Fluff and Angst, I swear it was, M/M, Obikin Week, Obikin Week 2k18, Obikinweek, THEY FINALLY GET TO MEET YALL, There is a lot more Ahsoka then I intended, but then emotions happened, obikin, obikinweek18, personal headcannons about tatooine slave culture play a part in this, this is a day late and i'm sorry, this was supposed to be fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsDwarfKat/pseuds/HogwartsDwarfKat
Summary: The Festival of Death and Freedom has arrived and old friends will be reunited.ORAnakin meets a young Togruta as he mourns his lover.ORObi-Wan has traveled across the galaxy to see his love, now he must find him in a sea of people.ORASK AND YOU SHALL RECIEVE MY BEAUTIFUL READERS!!! (Sequel to 'i found love where it wasn't supposed to be [right in front of me])





	say you'll see me again (even if it's just in your wildest dreams)

**Author's Note:**

> For Obikin Week 2k28, Day Five: Masquerade (meeting under masks).
> 
> Sorry it's late, I wanted it to be really good and therefore needed time to edit it. Wrote this Saturday.
> 
> (Title from "Wildest Dreams" by Taylor Swift)

Over a month has passed since Anakin first saw the news, and still his heart ached. The dreams have not come -he knew what this meant. As much as he wished to mourn, to shower the world with enough tears to be confused with the rains which herald the freeing of his people, he does not. To waste water is to spit upon the dead

Besides, there was too much to do with the Shmeteka around the bend. The time to honor him will be then, when all toast to the dead with a drink of water.

For now, he has a new mask to make, his old too tattered to fully conceal his face from the spirits of the Restless Masters, forever cursed to transverse the dessert dunes.

* * *

It felt like an eternity had gone by since they had left Coruscant. They had taken so many transports to avoid the risk of being followed. A risk in its own -the more people you see, the more that could recognize you. But they have arrived, they are here.

Ahsoka doesn’t understand why they’ve come to Tatooine -and how can he explain truthfully?

_Ahsoka, I’m a terrible Jedi and Master. I’ve been carrying on an affair in with a man whose name I don’t even know. Who I’ve only met in my dreams and visions. I don’t know if he’s real or not but I’m still risking both our lives to see him in case he is because I love him._

No, she would think him crazy if he did. Perhaps she would be right.

“Master, where are we going? You haven’t told me anything besides, ‘I know a place,’” the Togruta girl hissed. The hood of her cloak was up, and while her body was lax, he knew her eyes were sharp, and fingers were ready to grasp her lightsabers at a moment’s notice.

_Good,_ he thought, _here is not the place to let down your guard._

“We are heading to Mos Eisley, a hive a scum and villainy for sure, but a place where my contact should be within a few days.” He paused for a minute and glanced to see if anyone was listening to them, before continuing, “And don’t use that title here, my young padawan, it has a very different meaning here.”

“How different?” she replied curtly.

“Think Zygerria,” He told her sharply, “From now on our old titles are dead to us.”

Ahsoka nodded stiffly, her fists clenched -no doubt remembering that shit show of a mission. “Who is this contact of yours”

He hesitated, “I don’t know his name…” At her incredulous look he hastened to reassure her, “But I would trust him with my life, and more importantly, I would trust him with _your_ life, little one.”

“Not little…” She grumbled, causing a burst of amusement to fill him for the first time since it all went to hell. “How will we get there?”

“It’s a day and a half speeder ride from here, and a death sentence to walk.”

“Well _great_ , I’ll guess we’ll just be taking that speeder we don’t have then?” She deadpanned.

Obi-Wan eyed a Dug, getting out of a speeder. It was his lover’s racing rival. He had an idea and judging by the look of suspicious dread on his padawan’s face, he must have his ‘bad idea’ smirk. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, after all, it’s parked in the alley over there,” he said.

Ahsoka followed his line of sight and immediately gasped, “Mas-” she cut herself off at his glare. “ _Father,_ ” she corrected with an eyeroll at their alias, “We _can’t_ , we don’t even know who it belongs to!”

“I do, and he’s a pile of bantha shit. Though,” he tilted his head as they arrived in front of the speeder, “We’ll have to sell it to Ewoks as soon as we arrive. Sebullba will be looking for it as soon as he comes back out of the cantina in few hours.”

She started arguing with him in hissed tones as he began hotwiring the vehicle, but not before demanding to know where he learned this particular skill, as it was _certainly_ not from the temple. He won when he promised to teach her.

* * *

“You fix the east vaporators yet?”

“Yeah,” Anakin as he flopped into his chair for lunch, happy to be out of the mid-day heat before it hit peak, “Gave them a few upgrades too, hope you don’t mind Cliegg.”

He grunted in reply, “Just mention it _beforehand_ next time.”

“’specially since you’re the only one who can fix them after,” Owen threw in as he helped Beru bring out the blue milk and womp rat jerky.

“Too skilled for your own good,” his stepsister-in-law teased. “You finish your new mask yet?”

He nodded, “Just putting some finishing touches on my last candle.”

“I thought you finished those last month Ani?” His mother questioned form her end of the table.

Anakin clenched his fist around the hem of his shirt, “I-I needed another one…”

No one questioned it any further, recognizing it as a touchy subject. Instead they moved on to talk about how to protect the farmstead from the Tusken Raiders, who had been growing bolder as of recently. If Anakin was suddenly withdrawn from the conversation, no one mentioned it, it was nothing different from how he had been since last month.

* * *

“I don’t get why we have to wear these masks.”

Obi-Wan sighed, “I _told_ you young one, it is for the Festival of Death and Freedom -or the Shmeteka as the natives call it. If I recall correctly, it is to hide a person from malevolent spirits as they honor the dead.”

Around them the festivities were in full swing, colorful masks of all shapes and sizes, vendors selling assortments of food, others extra masks, and some candles for the lighting if he remembered correctly -his visions of the holiday were few and far between. He had gotten them both a mask of blue, green and purple, it had cost quite a bit, but it was worth it to have lightsaber colors. “The colors of our masks represent our fallen you know.”

That piqued her interest, “Really?”

He nodded, “This I remember distinctly: these masks are supposed to be designed after someone -or someones- you’ve lost.” He noticed her peaking interest in the topic now, “Why don’t you try to talk to some of the natives? If they’re willing, they’ll be able to explain it all better than I.”

Suddenly a vulnerable look crossed her face, “Obi,” she whispered, “We’re gonna be here a long time, aren’t we? It-it’s not gonna be safe for us elsewhere, will it?

A part of him broke at the look on her face, as he was reminded of what she really was at the moment without all the bravado to hide behind: a scared girl barely on the cusp of adulthood who just lost almost everything, betrayed and shot down by those she called friend. Whether what Rex said about chips was right or not, it didn’t stop the hurt -perhaps just made it worse.

He gently cupped the side of her face with the palm of his hand, “I will not lie to you, it is not right now, and it may not be safe for us for a _very_ long time, but I swear to you, _I will keep you safe._ This can be a home for us if we let it be.” He looked at her softly, meeting her eyes, “Okay?”

She looked down, but leaned into his hand for comfort, “…okay.”

He gave her his best approximation of an encouraging smile, “Now,” he said, “why don’t you go meet some people while I try to find my contact. He should be around here,” he looked around him briefly, only seeing a sea of undistinguishable people, “…somewhere under one of those masks…”

Ahsoka gave him a shaky smile as she got up from their outdoor table at a less seedy cantina, “Okay _dad,_ and hey, maybe while you’re looking you can find someone to spend the night with.” She wiggled her brow bones at him and danced away as he gave a shrieked ‘Ashla!’

Even when flustered he knew to remember their aliases.

* * *

The celebration raged on around Anakin, and he was content to let it pass by him and leave him to his moment of grief. So many people he had lost: friends and neighbors and…and his lover…

He held his final candle in his hands and stared, wondering how to go about the prayer for a man who’s name he never knew. Eventually he knelt into the sand, holding back a grimace as he felt it slip beneath his clothing, and set it down before him. As he began to mutter the sacred prayer, with the tongue of slaves falling from his lips as gently as the breeze, he traced the carvings on the candle. The Mark of a Warrior, the Crest of a Wordsmith, the Sign of a Teacher, and on and on until finally he traced the Seal of a Beloved. With that Anakin lit the candle and pulled out his canteen. He raised it to the sky, uttered the Toasting phrase, and brought it to his lips.

When he finally finished taking his draught, he looked up to the three moons and murmured, “May the Force be with you.”

“Is that something you always say during the festival?”

He whirled around immediately, his face growing dark behind his krayt mask, “And who wants to know?”

“Ashla Kenobi…My dad and I just moved here,” the young Togruta girl responded with her head slightly tilted so her lekku swayed gently in the breeze.

“I’m guessing he never taught you not to eavesdrop on other people’s _private_ moments,” he snapped before he could help it. His mother would be disappointed in him if she had heard.

She, at least, had the sense to look the least bit ashamed and embarrassed, “I’m sorry…I was just curious -you don’t tend to ear people saying that anymore -what with the empire and what not.” There was something in the way she said ‘empire,’ a carefully concealed feeling of bitterness hidden by a veil of faux-innocence. As if the newly born governing body had personally done her a great and sweeping wrong. It reminded him of his fellow slave-born speaking of the masters.

Anakin decided that he liked her.

“Because of the Jedi?”

A flash of pain crossed her face, gone just as quick as it came, but he saw it, “Yeah…from what I hear they’re all being arrested and thrown in jail.”

He couldn’t help the pity that dripped from his words next, meant for the both of them, “Don’t believe what the Holonews says little one, none of them are going to jail.”

She tensed all of a sudden, a terse quality slipping into her voice, “Oh?” It was a biting, vicious utterance and he knew at once that she thought he was denying the ongoing genocide. “Then where _are_ they taking the captured Jedi?”

He softened his voice, in a flash he knew this _was_ personal for her, “To death, Little One.”

Her eyes held the look of the broken and defeated, and something in him broke too. “I know…” The phrase was little more than a whisper.

He recognized her voice from his waking-dreams, though he could not place it to a face, and knew what she was, what she used to be. He stretched out his hand to her slowly, not sure this ‘Ashla’ would take the comfort he was offering. After a moment’s hesitation she grasped his hand and let him pull her into a hug and rest his chin on her head. The embrace felt familiar somehow, as if he had done it a thousand times before.

“Come Little One” he whispered low enough for just her to hear, “Let’s go light a candle for your fallen siblings.” She stiffened in his arms, no doubt realizing that he knew she was once a Jedi. “Shh, I won’t tell Little One, I won’t tell.”

Ever so slowly she relaxed, sensing the truth in his words, either through the Force or something else he did not know. Perhaps the Mother Krayt had whispered the truth to her in the wind even. It did not matter. Eventually she pulled away slightly to look at him, “So, ah, what-what are the candles for?”

He allowed the change in topic, “We light them for people we have lost to death, in hopes that it guides them to the Fields of Green.” At her questioning look he explained further, “The Fields of Green is the land of the Mother Krayt, the mother of all the gods and natives here on Tatooine. It is a land where all who come find freedom, full of plant life and water, untouched and unsullied by the Masters.” He paused and considered his words, considered why he was revealing so much to an outsider and off-worlder. For what was sacred is secret, and secret is sacred.

Despite that, Anakin stopped at a vendor and bought a candle for the young Togruta, despite her insistence that she could pay. Her protests stopped however, when he told her that gifts were never given lightly, and while the girl obviously didn’t understand all that he meant in that phrase, she at least understood that in a land stricken by chronic poverty, it is insulting to turn down a gift. He sat them down at one of the many tables left outside for the celebration and pulled out a small knife, “On the candles we carve the symbols that describe the people we have lost: the Mark of a Warrior, for example.” He paused long enough to carve the symbol, having a feeling that she wouldn’t mind it being added. “Tell me about them and I can carve for you, if you would like?”

She nodded jaggedly, before she started speaking, “We were teachers and students. Friends. Family…” On and on she spoke as he carved out all the he could until finally there was no where else to carve. “What now?” Ashla asked when she noticed.

“Now,” Anakin said getting up and leading her back to where his candles still burned in the sand, “You light it and say the sacred prayer as you trace the words -it is meant to invoke each aspect of them that you chose to honor, so that you may help them find their way better. Once you finish, you raise your water to the sky in toast to them and drink.”

“I don’t know the prayer…”

“I’ll show you, repeat after me.”

And so haltingly they made their way through the ceremony, foreign words tripping clumsily off the girl’s lips like a newborn bantha taking its first steps.

* * *

Obi-Wan looked everywhere for his blond lover. But none of the masks were the one his love had worn the year prior.

_Perhaps he made a new one?_ Obi-Wan thought, _His old one was rather tattered…_

The redhead was losing hope, worried that maybe the other was celebrating at home this year -despite the fact that he always went to Mos Eisley for the festival since he and his mother moved to the Anchorhead area. Worried that perhaps he truly was crazy, and his lover was never real. That -Force forbid- his lover had died and _that_ was why the dreams had not come in so long, not since that last blessed night before Palpatine had seized control.

_NO!_ Obi-Wan refused to consider it, _I-I would have felt it, felt that blazing sun of a Force presence go out. Would have felt my heart shatter by now. I just- I just haven’t found him yet in this sea of people._

If only it was safe to reach out into the Force to find him, then this torture would be over, but no, he couldn’t risk it. Sidious knew his Force signature too well, if he tried it could lead him here: to Obi-Wan. To Ahsoka. To his blue-eyed lover.

_I just have to look harder. Hopefully Ahsoka’s having a good time._

* * *

After, when they were now once more sat at a table instead of kneeling in the sand, Ashla was quiet as she looked around them to see the rest of the festival. People dancing and shouting and singing, yes, some were kneeling but, most were now reveling, comforted that their lost have found freedom in death. Anakin longed to break the silence, but didn’t know what to say, luckily, he didn’t have to.

“My father said that the masks were to hide you from evil spirits.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but he nodded anyway, “More or less. That’s what the masters think at least. How did you father know? It’s not something you learn from a book and I thought you said you just moved here.”

She shrugged, “He knows someone here, I don’t’ know who, but he probably learned it from him.”

He nodded, “That explains it.” He looked in the direction that she was looking, seeing a large group of dancers, when he glanced back at Ashla she seemed entranced. “Well specifically, it’s to hide us from the Restless Masters: the ghosts of the first slavers that came and enslaved the native people. It’s said that because of their crimes against the Mother Krayt’s children, their souls were never allowed rest. Now they roam the Dune Sea, enslaving any that cross their path.” He looked back towards the dancers, “Though you probably can’t tell, the dancers are actually telling the story, if you know how to read it.”

She finally looked at him again as the performance came to a close, “So is that why it’s called the Festival of Death and Freedom? Shmeteka?”

He looked at her sharply, “Who told you that name?”

She jerked back, obviously in surprise at his change in demeaner, “My dad…that’s what he said when I asked.”

Anakin forced himself to relax, “Don’t let the masters here you say either of those names, Little One. They only know it by the Festival of Death, and it has to stay that way.” He let the urgency leak into his voice, “The name you spoke is known only by the slave-born and their kin.”

“I’m sorry, I-I didn’t know…”

He took a deep breath, she was only a young girl after all -Jedi or no. “It’s alright Little One, you didn’t know, but there is another reason for the masks that the slavers _must not know._ ” She nodded and leaned closer. He glanced around, before speaking once more, voice low, “The slavers think this is a holiday for the free folk and only the free folk, what they don’t know is that the very slaves they own walk around among them as equals this night. This night lets the slave born escape their chains and mock their owners with their stolen joy.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes serious, “I think I understand better now…”

“Good, I’m glad Little One,” he replied, a slight smile upon his lips.

“And stop calling me that! I’m almost as tall as you,” she exclaimed with her arms crossed petulantly.

He laughed and raised his hands in surrender, “As you wish, _Ashla_.”

She huffed before tilting her head in curiosity. “You know,” she started, “You never told me your name.”

“Anakin,” he replied, “Anakin Skywalker.”

* * *

It’s been nearly two hours since Ahsoka and Obi-Wan had left the inn they were staying in for the celebrations. Two hours that he has been looking for his phantom lover. Two hours and nothing to show for it.

Obi-Wan decided that he needed a break from the search, his heart couldn’t take anymore failure at the moment. So, he began looking for Ahsoka instead, thinking that they both could use some food. It took some time to find his wayward padawan, but he did. He noticed her laughing along with some man -or at least presumably a man from the shape of their body, these things are always hard to tell even without a mask.

As he approached he saw the mystery person throw their arm around Ahsoka and pull her to his side. He felt protectiveness well inside of him like a plasma keg about to explode _Well that just would NOT do!_

His face fell into a fierce scowl, _What kind of SLEEMO flirted with an underage girl!_ He thought. _And Ahsoka is letting him! Oh, they were going to be having **words**._

Ahsoka must have noticed his approach because what little he could see of her face broke out into a bright grin as she started waving at him vigorously. He said nothing as he arrived, merely gave her companion in the red krayt dragon mask as stern a look as he could manage with most of his face hidden. That was, until he got a good look in the man’s impeccably blue eyes and blond hair. Pain overwhelmed him.

After so many failures he knew better than to hope.

Curiously however, those blue eyes filled with thinly veiled pain as they took Obi-Wan in as well. _Probably knows what will happen if he lays another finger on Ahsoka._

He was pulled from his thoughts suddenly as the girl in question practically tackled him with a hug, “Dad you’re here!” She must have noticed the bantha spears he had bought in his way to her as she immediately snatched one from his hands, “And you brought _food_!” Anything else she might have said was quickly put off as she sank her elongated canines into the meat.

Silence reigned as Ahsoka ate, Obi-Wan opting to instead stand intimidatingly next to her, trying to make himself seem as tall as possible to the man with the dragon disguise. It was rather difficult do to the fact that the blond was _impossibly_ tall. _Honestly_ , he thought, _it should be illegal to be that tall._

And oh, didn’t that thought send knives into his heart, reminding him of saying that to another blue-eyed blond.

Thankfully Ahsoka chose that moment to speak again, cutting off bittersweet memories before they could truly begin, “Dad, meet Anakin, he’s been telling me all about the festival and Tatooine. Anakin, this is my dad, Ben.”

The man nodded at him, looking him over head to foot. Ob-Wan was not impressed to say the least.

All of a sudden Ahsoka had a wicked glint in her eyes -he had a bad feeling about this.

“You know Anakin,” she started and oh Force he could hear the self-satisfied smirk in her voice, “those robes look super good on you-”

_Oh, little Force gods she’s hitting on him_ , he realized, frozen in horror.

**_PADAWAN!_** He yelled at her through their force bond, because _kark_ Palpatine this is much worse than that bantha poodu finding them.

“-but you wanna know where they’d look even better?” The smirk was definitely in full force.

He barely noticed that this Anakin fellow started to shift in a distinctly discomforted manner as he once more yelled to her through their bond, too horrified to open his mouth in case only inhuman shrieks came out, **_PADAWAN HE IS MUCH TOO OLD FOR YOU DON’T YOU DARE FINISH THAT THOU-_**

It was too late. “The floor of my dad’s room…”

_Oh Force, she just hit on hi- wait what?!_

Silence settled heavy over the group as the two men tried to process what she just said. It felt like the moment before a bomb went off.

But then, seconds later -or perhaps it was an eternity? - the bomb exploded in the form of Anakin’s raucous laughter and-

Oh, Force that laughter. He _knew_ that laugh.

Anakin, voice full of mirth -and oh how Obi-Wan knew that voice from anywhere- said, “Did you- did- did you just hit on me-” That glorious voice once more broke into heavenly laughter, “For your _dad?!_ ” Again, he laughed, and it took Obi-Wan’s breath away.

He vaguely noted that Ahsoka looked proud of herself, “I sure as kark did! Did it work?”

“Language!” The reprimand fell absently from his lips, barley more than a breath of air, but by the way Anakin’s head shot in his direction and his blue eye - _eyes he knew-_ widened, he heard. Knew and recognized.

* * *

_Ben, his name was Ben_ , was all that was going through Anakin’s head as he realized just who it was standing before him, correcting his new friend’s language as if it was second nature to him. It didn’t matter to him that something told him that it both was and wasn’t his name, all that mattered was that he had something to call him and _he was HERE._

_Ben_ , he thought once more. But- but it was impossible? He-he was dead. Killed in the Jedi round up, wasn’t he?

_Weren’t you?_

Blue eyes met sea green, neither truly noticing Ashla shifting back and forth on her feet, staring at the two in confusion.

“ _Dear One,_ ” Ben breathed out and it sounded like a prayer to Anakin’s ears, “Dear One tell me I’m not crazy, tell me you’re really here.” The redhead swallowed, and he couldn’t help following the bobbing of the other’s Adam’s apple with his eyes. “Tell me I didn’t imagine it all.”

The broken lilt to the words broke Anakin’s revere. “I’m here, I’m here love, I’m here.”

“Wait, what!” Ahsoka exclaimed to deaf ears.

Ben grabbed a hold of his face, stroking his cheek from under the mask, and suddenly confessions were bursting from both of them, “I had been trying to find you all night…”

“I-I thought you were dead. I lit candle for you,” he moaned, leaning in closer to the hand on his face.

“Oh _love!”_

Anakin pressed their foreheads together, “The dreams had stopped coming and- and I heard about the Jedi on the Holonews and I-”

“Shhh darling it’s okay I understand.”

“Kiss me?”

He wasn’t sure who asked, who leaned in first, but the moment that their lips touched, and he felt the other’s beard brush against his cheeks, it was as if galaxies erupted and his skin caught fire, burning him alive in the best of ways.

* * *

Obi-wan felt alive for the first time in too long as he kissed Anakin. Felt as he was finally whole. At peace. It was electrifying as he mingled his tongue with his lover’s, pressing their bodies that much closer. He wished to never let go. And despite it all -despite the awkward press of slightly shoved away masks, chapped lips, and Ahsoka’s squawking in the background demanding to know what the _kriff_ was going on, it was by far the best kiss he ever had.

It was better than any dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and especially thank you to all who asked for a sequel! Feel free to message me @youbeyouillbemelove on Tumblr!


End file.
